Cleveland State University's First-Year Writing Sequence

Why Should I Care About College Writing Courses?

What is the Attendance Policy?

How do I Communicate with my Professors?

Part of “doing college” means understanding that how you communicate to others impacts how they perceive your maturity and/or professionalism. That said, most instructors do not mind receiving and responding to emails but often mind very much if those emails do not include a formal address/sign-off, your full name, and your class and section number. Please use the example below as a reference when crafting your emails. Review the second example of how not to communicate with your instructor.

Student Hours

Babin, Monique, Carol Burnell, Susan Pesznecker, Nicole Rosevear, Jaime Wood. The Word on College Reading and Writing. Open Source Oregon, 2017. https://openoregon.pressbooks.pub/wrd/.

Bartholomae, David. "Inventing the University." Journal of Basic Writing, vol. 5, no. 1, 1986, pp. 4-23, https://wac.colostate.edu/jbw/v5n1/bartholomae.pdf. Accessed on 12 Jan. 2018.

Eschholz, Paul and Alfred Rosa. Subject & Strategy: A Writer’s Reader. 11th ed., Bedford/St. Martin, 2007.

Edmundson, Mark. “Who Are You and What Are You Doing Here?” The Engaged Reader: Issues and Conversations in Composition, edited by Breeze, et al., VanGriner, 2017.

Gayle, Kendra, Jessica Mckee, and Megan McIntyre. “Fallacious Pathos.” Writing Commons, n.d., http://writingcommons.org/fallacious-pathos.

“Ideology | Definition of Ideology In English By Oxford Dictionaries.” Oxford Dictionaries | English, 2018, https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/ideology. Accessed on 12 Jan. 2018.

Jamieson, Sandra. “Synthesis Writing.” Drew University On-Line Resources for Writers, 1999, https://users.drew.edu/sjamieso/Synthesis.htm.

Krause, D. Steven. Quoting, Paraphrasing, and Avoiding Plagiarism. The Process of Research Writing, Spring 2007, http://www.stevendkrause.com/tprw/chapter3.html.

Lane, Emily, Jessica Mckee, and Megan McIntyre. “Fallacious Logos.” Writing Commons, n.d., http://writingcommons.org/fallacious-logos.

McKee, Jessica and Megan McIntyre. “Fallacious Ethos.” Writing Commons, n.d., http://writingcommons.org/fallacious-ethos.

Murray, M. Donald. “Teach Writing as a Process Not Product.” http://www.csun.edu/~krowlands/Content/Academic_Resources/Composition/Processes/Murray-process.pdf.

National Council of Teachers of English. “Electronic Portfolios: Principles and Practices.” Conference on College Composition and Communication, Mar. 2015, http://www.ncte.org/cccc/resources/positions/electronicportfolios/summary.

National Council of Teachers of English. “Writing Assessment: A Position Statement.” Conference on College Composition and Communication, Nov. 2014, http://www.ncte.org/cccc/resources/positions/writingassessment.

Nordquist, Richard. “Rhetorical Analysis: Glossary of Grammatical and Rhetorical Terms.” ThoughtCo, 26 Apr. 2017, https://www.thoughtco.com/rhetorical-analysis-1691916.

The Owl of Purdue. “Rhetorical Situation.” The Owl of Purdue Family of Sites. The Writing Lab and OWL at Purdue and Purdue U, 2017, https://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/625/01/.

Wilhoit, Stephen. A Brief Guide to Writings from Readings, Sixth Edition. Boston: Pearson, 2010. Print.

Here are some of the things you can expect to find in college:

• The need for personal responsibility.
• Use of an agenda or planner.
• Varying class sizes.
• Less time in class and more emphasis on independent study.
• Strong emphasis on tests and less busywork.
• The need for critical thinking skills.
• Consequences.

In college, it is your responsibility to have everything you need for the first day of school. This includes learning your way around on campus to purchasing your textbooks and parking pass. Every aspect of your academic career from learning how to read a textbook, to finding out about available resources for students, is your responsibility.

It is best to use a manual planner or an app on your phone. You will need it to manage your time. Some courses require more work than others and you will need to keep track of when your assignments are due. Taking your planner to class each session and keeping it updated is a reasonable expectation for success. Not adopting this habit is a sure way to poor mid-term and final grades.

There will be times you are in a small classroom of 15 and in your next class, you are in a lecture hall with 200 students. This means learning to adapt to your professors different teaching styles. You must learn how to take notes.

You will spend more time working independently in college and this may mean group work outside of the classroom.

• Complete your part of the assignment and do it well.
• Accept that everyone is different and be open to new ideas.
• Communicate! Discuss in advance what everyone is expected to do.
• Exchange contact information (phone number and email addresses).
• Hold meetings to check for understanding, and to monitor group progress.
• Finally, have a positive attitude, and support the other group members.

Your professors work hard to develop assignments to assess your grasp of the concepts being taught and you should resist the temptation to compare things to high school or to think you are more knowledgeable.

There will be an emphasis on test taking and less of the high school busy work you might have experienced. In order to do well on any test or exam, you have to study hard and be prepared. But you can further improve your test performance by using test-taking strategies.

You will hear the term “critical thinking” over and over from your professors. Critical thinking is a core skill that you will develop. Simplified, it means wondering why these things are so. You should embrace being skeptical about everything concept presented. To learn, we read, research and write about what we have learned.

Finally, there are consequences for your actions in college.  They follow you on your transcript as you apply for jobs. This is what truly the collegiate experience from high school.

The Michael Schwartz Library

• Access to electronic resources, including the web, at more than 100 PCs within the Library.
• On-demand access to over 29,000 journal titles available on Library PCs and from your home computer.
• An on-site collection including 975,000 print volumes and an additional 1,000,000 items, such as sound recordings, video recordings, DVDs, and microforms.
• Friendly staff ready to help you with your information needs.
• Evening and weekend hours.
• In-person and online borrowing privileges for books from 85 OhioLINK libraries.
• Access to the SCHOLAR Library catalog, the Web, and other electronic resources from your home computer.
• The latest research databases.
• Free interlibrary loan service, providing access to an almost unlimited number of library materials owned by other libraries world-wide, through a web-based interface putting you in control of your own borrowing activities. ("Welcome to the Library" by the Director Glenda Thornton)

The Writing Center

• In-person sessions (BH 208)
• Online appointments (via Zoom)
• Written Feedback (asynchronous: fill out a form and receive feedback)

The Academic Support Hub (The Hub)

• Success Coaching - this is a wonderful way to help you plan out your semester, project due dates, and more.
• Tutoring - “Sign-up for your tutoring appointments through your Starfish account – or contact us at the Hub”

Structured Learning Assistance (SLA)

The Center for International Services & Programs (CISP)

The CSU Counseling Center

Using Digital Resources and Tools

Blackboard

Starfish

• Find your assigned advisor
• Look for communication from your support network about your academic progress
• Schedule an appointment to meet with an advisor or tutor
• Schedule a tutorial with the Writing Center
• Schedule Supplemental Instruction (for certain courses)
• Course Conferences (with participating faculty)

Cleveland State University Computer Labs

Mobile Campus

Information Services and Technology (IS&T)

Using Microsoft OneNote

University Resources

Office of Disability Services (ODS)

The Community Assessment Response & Evaluation (CARE) Team

The Liberal Arts were once concerned with the study of that which is true. To make the adjustment from high school writing to writing at the collegiate level you must realize academic writing today is all about current beliefs which change over time. You will have to practice learning not only how to think like an academic, but how to read like one as well until this becomes a habit. We read, we research, and write about what we have learned.

Learning how to read in college also helps you develop content knowledge. This section includes a brief discussion of what it means to read to build content knowledge.

Reading to Build Content Knowledge

1. Good readers almost always annotate the text  as they read.
2. Good readers know that almost all non-fiction texts—no matter the discipline, level of difficulty, or genre—follow pretty much the same pattern. The main idea comes at the beginning, the body paragraphs support the main idea, and the conclusion wraps up the whole thing. All the way back in grade school, you may have learned this formula for presenting your work: “Say what you are going to say, then say it, then say what you just said.” This describes a PhD dissertation as well as it did your fifth-grade book report.
3. Good writers don’t write to obscure; they write to clarify. (Mostly.) In order to be clear, they use the conventions of standard professional or academic non-fiction prose writing. If you know these conventions and their purpose, you will never get lost in someone’s written statement. You already know that most non-fiction texts have an intro, a supporting body, and a conclusion (see #2 above). These elements too are conventions. Other conventions to look for:

4. If you are not already a good reader with an extensive vocabulary, it can be difficult to pick up rhetorical subtleties and to keep previous points in mind as you continue to read—especially with long works. Here, as with so many other difficult tasks, the key is to understand the big picture and break the task up. Using your pen or pencil (see #1 above), mark off the key conventional elements of the text (see #3 above) and any other important features you notice at a glance. Then, read the introduction and conclusion. Next, read the first and last sentence of each paragraph. If that doesn’t give you the main idea of each paragraph, keep reading from the outside in until you get it. Write down the main points of these sections in the margins, on Post-its, or in your notes. This focused reading and writing will help you keep track of the main ideas of the whole article or essay or chapter, and when you see what you have written, you may be able to understand the work at a deeper level simply by imagining the connections between your annotations.
5. Good readers are alert to other rhetorical features, like tone, purpose, audience, and context. Once you have the main ideas of your text at least partly understood and written down, then you can start to appreciate these other features, which are the subject of the next chapter, “How to Read Rhetorically.”

Do Quick Research

When you’re reading and come to words and ideas you’re unfamiliar with, you may want to stop and take a moment to do a bit of quick research. Google is a great tool for this—plug in the idea or word and see what comes up. Keep on digging until you have an answer, and then, to help retain the information, take a minute to write a note about it.

Rhetorically Reading the Text: Understanding What the Author is Trying to Say

• Who is the author? What else has he or she written? What is the author’s occupation? Is the author a journalist, professor, business person, or entertainer? Is the author an expert on the topic he or she is writing about?
• When and where was the piece originally published? Research the original publication. Does that publication have a perceived bias? Is the original publication highly regarded?
• What is the author’s main idea? The main idea is the author’s central claim or thesis. Describe the author’s main idea in your own words. Does the author make his or her claim successfully? Is the claim held consistently throughout the text? Does the thesis appear in one sentence or in bits and pieces throughout the text?
• What information does the author provide to support the central claim?Making a list of each key point the author makes will help you analyze the overall text. Hint: each paragraph should address one key point, and all paragraphs should relate to the text’s central claim.
• What kind of supporting evidence does the author use?Is the evidence based more on fact or opinion, and do you feel those choices are effective? Where does this evidence come from? Are the sources authoritative and credible?
• What is the author’s main purpose?Note that this is different that the text’s main idea. The text’s main idea (above) refers to the central claim or thesis embedded in the text. The author’s purpose, however, refers to what he or she hopes to accomplish. Is the author’s goal to persuade his or her readers to adopt a viewpoint or to act in some way? Does the author intend to provide information or to entertain?
• Describe the tone in the piece. Is it friendly? Authoritative? Does it lecture? Is it biting or sarcastic? Comedic or dire?
• Describe the diction in the piece. What word choices does the author make? Does the author use simple or technical language? Is it full of jargon? Does the language feel positive or negative? Formal or conversational? Does the author use figurative language?
• Is the author objective? Why does the author try to persuade you to adopt his or her viewpoint? If the author is biased, does this interfere with the way you read and understand the text?
• Does the text seem to be aimed at readers like you or at a different audience? What assumptions does the author make about his or her audience? Would most people find these reasonable, acceptable, or accurate? Is the author trying to reach a certain age group, ethnicity, gender, or educational background?
• Does the author try to appeal to your emotions? Does the author use any controversial words in the piece? Do these affect your reading or your interest?
• How is the piece organized? Where does the thesis appear? Toward the beginning or the end of the text and why? Are there sections with bolded subheadings, and if so, do these subheadings accurately reflect the content of the section.
• Does the piece include images or graphics? Are there illustrations, photographs, or graphs? Do these images add to or detract from the written text?

Rhetorically Reading the Context: Understanding Context

An example of how yesterday is different

Think about your smartphone. You may have been born at the end of the 20th century or the start of the 21st century. Your family had a cordless phone. Thirty years ago, most households had landline phones and had to dial a number (see the above photo), which was called a rotary phone. In most households today, there is no landline.

"Western Electric Model 302 Telephone c.1945" by fwaggle is licensed under CC BY-NC 2.0 

How to consider context

Everything you read, and all that you write must be considered contextually. Some instructors refer to rhetorical context, or the writing situation. As writers, you have to think of this as you begin any reading or writing assignments. Below are a few questions you might want to consider when analyzing the time, place, and setting of a text:

• Where was the text published?
• Was it published online or in print?
• When was the text published? What does this tell you about the time it was written? Is it still relevant information or outdated?
• What is the author’s main idea? Is it a current belief?

Rhetorically Reading the Context: Understanding Author Bias and Authority

Often, understanding the author's bias or authority will require some research that goes well beyond any blurb that might be included with the actual article. Google the author, or consider looking at his or her LinkedIn profile. Look at several different sources instead of relying on just one website to understand who the author is.

• Does the author support a particular political or religious view that could be affecting his or her objectivity in the piece?
• Is the author supported by any special-interest groups (i.e. the American Library Association or Keep America Safe)?
• Is the author a highly educated expert on that topic who is choosing to publish an article for a popular, mainstream audience?
• Is he or she a journalist who specializes in the topic? A journalist whose specialty is unclear? A citizen who is weighing in?
• Is the author writing from personal experience, or is he/she synthesizing and offering commentary on others' experiences?
• Each of these different levels of expertise will confer a different level of authority on the topic. It is important to understand whether or not an author is truly an expert on the content.

Rhetorically Reading the Context: Understand the Publication Ideology and Bias

• Does the publication have an ideological bias? (conservative? liberal?)
• Is the publication religious? Secular?
• Is the publication created for a very specific target audience?
• If you are looking at a website, what is its purpose? Was the site created to sell things, or are the authors trying to persuade voters to take a side on a particular issue?

A note on publication bias

What is the process we [writing instructors] should teach? It is the process of discovery through language. It is the process of exploration of what we know and what we feel about what we know through language. It is the process of using language to learn about our world, to evaluate what we learn about our world, to communicate what we learn about our world. Instead of teaching finished writing, we should teach unfinished writing, and glory in its unfinishedness. (4)

The Writing Process

The Writing Process in 6 Steps

Step 1 – Understand the Assignment

Step 2 – Gather Ideas and Form Working Thesis

• Free Writing
• Listing ideas
• Generate a list of questions
• Clustering/ Mapping (creating a bubble chart)
• Create a basic outline

Step 3 – Write a Draft

Step 4 – Revise the Draft(s)

Step 5 – Proof-Read/Edit the Draft(s)

Step 6 – Turn in the Draft, Receive Feedback, and Revise (if needed)

Types of Audience

Writing to an Imagined Audience

Invoking an audience requires students to imagine and construct their audience, and can be difficult for emerging or even practiced writers.  Even when writing instructors do provide students with a specific audience within a writing assignment, it is probable that this “audience” will likely be conceptualized by the student as his or her teacher. This “writing to the teacher” frame of mind often results in students guessing how to address their audience, which hinders their ability to write academically.

Writing to a Real Audience

What are Discourse Communities?

• For more information pertaining to audience please visit the NCTE "Audience" Poster or the Wikipedia “Audience” page.
• For more information pertaining to discourse communities please visit the NCTE "Discourse Community" Poster or Dan Melzer's "Understanding Discourse Communities."

Identifying Writing Requirements

• The key question or questions your essay needs to address
• What kind of writing you need to do (explanatory? argumentative? reflective?)
• Whether you need to use outside sources or not - and how many
• What format or style the essay needs to use (MLA, APA, Chicago)
• Resources you can use to help complete the assignment

Identifying Evaluation Criteria

 Recognizing Disciplinary Expectations

1. Define your terms
2. Develop the parts of your thesis so it answers as many who, what, when, where, how, and why questions as possible 

First Revision (early draft revision)

• Before you read over your draft, reread the assignment sheet to review the assignment's purpose. Then read your draft

• Do you have an introduction paragraph?
• Does your Intro paragraph lead up to a thesis?
• Is your thesis at the end of the intro? Does that thesis respond to the question on the assignment sheet?

• Does each body paragraph focus on the essay's thesis in a direct manner?
• Does each body paragraph focus on only one idea? When you begin to discuss a new idea, do you make a paragraph break?
• If you need to use sources in the essay, are you doing so?
  • If you have used sources in the essay, have you cited those sources?
• Do you have a Works Cited page for the sources you referenced?

• Do you have a conclusion? If so, great. If not, keep working on it for the final draft.

Pressbooks: Simple Book Production

There are a few things to remember to if you want to be a helpful peer reviewer

1. You don't need to take on the role of a "grader". That isn't the role of the peer reviewer.
2. You don't need to correct things. Instead, try to help the writer identify areas for revision or editing.
3. Sometimes, it is most valuable if you share your experience as a reader of the draft. You can explain what felt easy and clear to you as a reader and also where you struggled as a reader to understand what the writer was trying to accomplish.
4. Offer ideas for helping the writer to meet the assignment goals. Your understanding of the assignment goals might be stronger than your peer's, and if so, your suggestions could be quite helpful.
5. Be honest, accurate, detailed, and descriptive in comments that you leave. Brief or vague responses risk sounding like insults.

Offer "I"- focused observations 

1. I see your thesis at the end of your intro paragraph
2. I see transition phrases at the beginning of each new paragraph
3. I can see that you ___________,  which is a goal of this paper
4. In your ________ paragraph I see....but I do not see....
5. I do not see a Works Cited

Express your experience as a reader

1. My understanding is that the thesis of this paper should _______. I did not clearly see ______ in your thesis. Instead, I see (explain).
2. I was confused by this sentence (share the sentence) and I took it to mean (explain how you read that sentence).
3. In paragraph ______ I thought that, based on what you said in the first sentence, the whole paragraph would discuss X. But it looks to me like at the end of the paragraph, you begin discussing Y, which felt to me like a new and different idea.
4. I thought that your intro was really interesting and creative - the details you included about your experiences in the mountains were really cool.

Express places where, as a reader, you were drawn into the writing

1. I thought that the second paragraph was really clear and interesting because....
2. I like the way that you structured paragraph X because ....
3. I appreciate your use of (signal phrases? citations? MLA format? transitions? etc) because I have been struggling with that in my own writing. Thanks for the example

Avoid "you" phrases

• You should fix
• The assignment says to _____ but you didn't do that
• You need more____
• You need less_____
• To make the paper better, you need to____

Proofreading and Editing Strategies

• Close/specific reading
  • This strategy is always important to complete, as it requires intense analysis of your paper and prose. Use any rhetorically-based reading skills you have learned and apply these to this close read.
  • Be careful not to only rely on this tactic. It can be very easy to accidentally overlook an issue if you are only reading the essay in one way.  Make sure to use this strategy in conjunction with any of these other options.
• Reading aloud
  • This strategy is specifically helpful when checking the flow of your sources once integrated into your own work. By reading aloud, you can hear how you have synthesized the sources amongst your own work, allowing you to check that there is no break in the narrative.
  • Reading aloud also forces you to experience your writing in a different medium; in so doing, many structural and word choice issues can become clear, among others.
• Shift your start point
  • What this means is that you start reading over your essay in the middle of the essay, rather than always from the beginning.
  • Reading an essay out of order can help your mind experience each part of the essay in a new way, keeping you from becoming tired during a read though.
• Print the paper, then edit
  • Only working on an assignment through one medium (a computer screen, tablet, etc.) can cause your eyes to gloss over the same error over and over again. By printing out your work, you are allowing yourself a chance to physically see your work, which often leads to the recognition of additional errors.
• Walk away
  • Sometimes the best move is to give yourself a day or two away from your paper and then come back to it with fresh eyes. Doing so will allow you to gain some perspective on your topic and some psychological distance from your work.
  • Note that this means you will need to give yourself plenty of time before the paper is due.

How Do I Write A College-Level Sentence?

How to recognize and use FANBOYS (also known as Coordinating Conjunctions)

The term body paragraph refers to any paragraph that appears between the introductory and concluding sections of an essay. A good body paragraph should support the claim made in the thesis statement by developing only one key supporting idea. This idea is often referred to as a sub-claim.

Some sub-claims will take more time to develop than others, so body paragraph length can and often should vary in order to maintain your reader’s interest. When constructing a body paragraph, the most important objectives are to stay on-topic and to fully develop your sub-claim.

When constructing a body paragraph, make sure that you never begin or end with a quotation or a paraphrase. Rather, you should think of a body paragraph as conforming to the following pattern.

Typically, a body paragraph contains three main elements:

1. a topic sentence,
2. supporting evidence, and
3. an explanation of that evidence.

See section 4.3 for information on topic sentences, section 4.4 for information on supporting evidence, and section 4.5 for information on explaining the evidence.

A  topic sentence is usually the first sentence of a body paragraph. The purpose of a topic sentence is to identify the topic of your paragraph and indicate the function of that paragraph in some way.

In order to create an effective topic sentence, you should do the following:

1. Use a transitional device to effortlessly segue from the idea discussed in the previous paragraph.

When choosing a transitional device, you should consider whether your new paragraph will build onto the topic of your previous paragraph, begin to develop a new key idea or sub-claim, or present a counterargument or concession.

See section 4.6 for information regarding when to begin a new paragraph and section 4.7 for help with transitional words and phrases.

2. Clearly identify the key idea or sub-claim that you intend to expand upon in your new paragraph.

Even if you are building onto the idea of the previous paragraph, you will still need to identify the sub-claim in your topic sentence. When constructing a topic sentence, you may feel as though you are stating the obvious or being repetitive, but your readers will need this information to guide them to a thorough understanding of your ideas.

3. Make a connection to the claim you make in your thesis statement.

It might help to think of your topic sentence as a mini thesis statement. In your body paragraph, you should be expanding upon the claim you make in your thesis. For this reason, you should link your topic sentence to your thesis statement. Doing so tells your readers, “This is the point I mentioned in my thesis that I now intend to support and either prove or explain further.”

To connect to your thesis, you should consider the function of the body paragraph, which will usually depend upon the type of essay you are writing; for example, your topic sentence should suggest whether your goal is to inform or persuade your readers (your topic sentence should indicate whether or not you have an opinion or perspective on the topic).

Present your supporting evidence in the form of paraphrases and direct quotations.  Quotations should be used sparingly; that said, direct quotations are often handy when you would like to illustrate a particularly well-written passage or draw attention to an author’s use of tone, diction, or syntax that would likely become lost in a paraphrase.

Types of support might include the following:

• Statistics and data
• Research studies and scholarship
• Hypothetical and real-life examples
• Historical facts
• Analogies
• Precedents
• Laws
• Case histories
• Expert testimonies or opinions
• Eye-witness accounts
• Applicable personal experiences or anecdotes

Direct quotations and paraphrases must be integrated effortlessly and documented appropriately.  See section 11.4 for information on integrating supporting evidence with signal phrases and section 12.2 for information about citations.

Providing Context for Supporting Evidence

The information contained in your evidence selection might need to be introduced, explained, or defined so that your supporting evidence is perfectly clear to an audience unfamiliar with the source material. For example, your supporting evidence might contain a reference to a concept or term that is not explained or defined in the excerpt or elsewhere in your essay. In this instance, you would need to provide some clarification for your audience. Anticipating your audience is particularly important when incorporating supporting evidence into your essay. See section 3.2 for more information about audience awareness.

Now that we have a good idea what it means to develop support for the main ideas of your paragraphs, let’s talk about how to make sure that those supporting details are solid and convincing.

Good vs. Weak Support

This explanation can appear in one or more of the following forms:

• Analysis
• Evaluation
• Relevance or significance
• Comparison or contrast
• Cause and effect
• Refutation or concession
• Suggested action or conclusion
• Proposal of further study
• Personal reaction

• You’re ready to begin developing a new idea
• You want to emphasize a point by setting it apart
• You’re getting ready to continue discussing the same idea but in a different way (e.g. shifting from comparison to contrast)
• You notice that your current paragraph is getting too long (more than three-fourths of a page or so), and you think your writers will need a visual break

• You notice that some of your paragraphs appear to be short and choppy
• You have multiple paragraphs on the same topic
• You have undeveloped material that needs to be united under a clear topic

Why are Transitions Important?

When Is the Right Time to Build in Transitions?

Sentence-Level Transitions

To Show Similarity

Other connecting words that show similarity include also, similarly, and likewise.

To Show Contrast

Other connecting words that show contrast include in spite of, on the other hand, in contrast, and yet.

To Exemplify

Other connecting words that show example include for instance, specifically, and to illustrate.

To Show Cause and Effect

Other connecting words that show cause and effect include therefore, so, and thus.

To Show Additional Support

Other connecting words that show additional support include also, besides, equally important, and in addition.

A Word of Caution

Too Many Transitions: The Impressionist painters of the late 19th century are well known for their visible brush strokes, for their ability to convey a realistic sense of light, and for their everyday subjects portrayed in outdoor settings. In spite of this fact, many casual admirers of their work are unaware of the scientific innovations that made it possible this movement in art to take place. Then, In 1841, an American painter named John Rand invented the collapsible paint tube. To illustrate the importance of this invention, pigments previously had to be ground and mixed in a fairly complex process that made it difficult for artists to travel with them. For example, the mixtures were commonly stored in pieces of pig bladder to keep the paint from drying out. In addition, when working with their palettes, painters had to puncture the bladder, squeeze out some paint, and then mend the bladder again to keep the rest of the paint mixture from drying out. Thus, Rand’s collapsible tube freed the painters from these cumbersome and messy processes, allowing artists to be more mobile and to paint in the open air.

Subtle Transitions that Aid Reader Understanding: The Impressionist painters of the late 19th century are well known for their visible brush strokes, for their ability to convey a realistic sense of light, for their everyday subjects portrayed in outdoor settings. However, many casual admirers of their work are unaware of the scientific innovations that made it possible for this movement in art to take place. In 1841, an American painter named John Rand invented the collapsible paint tube. Before this invention, pigments had to be ground and mixed in a fairly complex process that made it difficult for artists to travel with them. The mixtures were commonly stored in pieces of pig bladder to keep the paint from drying out. When working with their palettes, painters had to puncture the bladder, squeeze out some paint, and then mend the bladder again to keep the rest of the paint mixture from drying out. Rand’s collapsible tube freed the painters from these cumbersome and messy processes, allowing artists to be more mobile and to paint in the open air.

Transitions between Paragraphs and Sections

Use Signposts

Use Forward-Looking Sentences at the End of Paragraphs

Use Backward-Looking Sentences at the Beginning of Paragraphs

Evaluate Transitions for Predictability or Conspicuousness

Exercise: Try Out Some New Transition Strategies

Claim

Teenagers and young adults seem to use their phones everywhere—in the classroom, at the dinner table, even in restroom stalls—because they want to stay connected to their friends and peers at all times, but I think spending that much time online is detrimental to their social skills and mental health.

Sub-claims

The sub-claims that the writer of this thesis statement will have to support in the body of the essay are

1. spending too much time online is detrimental to social skills
2. spending too much time online is detrimental to mental health

Body paragraph to develop sub-claim 2

In addition to impeding social development, excessive cellphone use can contribute to a range of mental health disorders. For example, Jean M. Twinge et al., a team of psychology researchers from San Diego State and Florida State Universities, conclude that increased screen time in adolescents is associated with a higher risk of depressive symptoms when compared to those engaged in nonscreen activities (9). Moreover, in the same study, the authors report that “adolescents using devices 5 or more hours a day (vs. 1 hour) were 66% more likely to have at least one suicide-related outcome” (9). Teenagers and young adults are not only more likely to engage in problematic use or overuse of cellphones, but because they are still maturing cognitively, they are especially vulnerable to the psychological repercussions.

Color Coding Key:

What is point of view, and how do I know which one to use?

• I love watching the leaves change in the fall. (First person point of view)
• You will love watching the leaves change color. (Second person)
• The leaves in fall turn many vibrant colors. (Third person)

• First person uses the following pronouns: I, me, my, us, we, myself, our, ours…. Any words that include the speaker/writer turn the sentence into first person.
• Second person uses any form of the word “you,” which has the effect of addressing the reader.
• Third person uses pronouns like he, she, it, they, them…. Any words that direct the reader to a person or thing that is not the writer or reader turn the sentence into third person.

That’s a lot to think about. When is it okay to use each of these points of view?

Does anything else affect the tone of my writing?

• The introduction previews the entire essay.
• The thesis statement goes at the end of the introduction and describes what the three body paragraphs will be about.
• The body paragraphs discuss each topic described in the thesis statement in detail.
• There should be transitions between each body paragraph.
• The conclusion repeats key points made in the essay and could be the introduction re-worded in a different way.

Problems with the five-paragraph format

• Writers usually decide on the three main body paragraphs before they start drafting.
• With three large topics to change from, writers are less likely to dig deep into a specific topic.
• Writers may use the five-paragraph format in ways that avoid detail and make their essays indistinguishable from other essays on the same topics.

Discover with writing

When to use the five-paragraph format

Works Cited

Murray, Donald. "Teach writing as a process not product." The Leaflet, vol.71, no.3 (1972), pp. 11-14.

• The writer does not know exactly what the essay is about yet, so they might have to rewrite the introduction to match what they end up writing.
• The writer may end up writing multiple introductions while trying to find a way to summarize and introduce a topic they have not yet written on.
• The writer may feel stuck and experience writer’s block (Thelin, Writing Without Formulas91).

• Free write
• Write the body of the essay
• Make a working outline
• Create a list of what they want to include
• Follow the steps of the writing process (as suggested in section 3.1 “The Writing Process”).

What essays could look like without the five-paragraph format

Chronological

General to specific

Specific to general

• Writers can start with their findings or their main point and then work backwards, describing how the more specific points fit into a larger context.
• Writers can start with very minute details of the situation they want to describe. Readers may not know exactly what the writer is describing, but as they continue reading, the writer reveals the context by zooming out more.

Problem-solution

Spatial

Climactic

Essay organization and culture

Application to your own writing

Works Cited

Aaron, Jane E. LB: the Little, Brown Handbook, Brief Version. Pearson Longman, 2014.

Shen, Fan. "The Classroom and the Wider Culture: Identity as a Key to Learning English

Composition." College Composition and Communication, vol. 40. no. 4, 1989, pp. 459-466.

Thelin, William. Writing Without Formulas. Second edition. Cengage, 2009.

Neutrality – The writer avoids inserting his or her opinion into the summary, or interpreting the original text’s content in any way.  This requires that the writer avoids language that is evaluative, such as: good, bad, effective, ineffective, interesting, boring, etc. Also, keep “I” out of the summary; instead, summary should be written in grammatical 3rd person (For example: “he”, “she”, “the author”, “they”, etc).

Brevity – The summary should not be longer than the original text, but rather highlight the most important information from that text while leaving out unnecessary details while still maintaining accuracy.

Independence – The summary should make sense to someone who has not read the original source.  There should be no confusion about the main content and organization of the original source.  This also requires that the summary be accurate.

What Makes Something a Summary?

• use your own words
• significantly condense the original text
• provide accurate representations of the main points of the text they summarize
• avoid personal opinion.

How Should I Organize a Summary?

Introducing a Summary

• Introduce the name of the author whose work you are summarizing.
• Introduce the title of the text being summarized.
• Introduce where this text was presented (if it’s an art installation, where is it being shown? If it’s an article, where was that article published? Not all texts will have this component–for example, when summarizing a book written by one author, the title of the book and name of that author are sufficient information for your readers to easily locate the work you are summarizing).
• State the main ideas of the text you are summarizing—just the big-picture components.
• Give context when necessary. Is this text responding to a current event? That might be important to know. Does this author have specific qualifications that make them an expert on this topic? This might also be relevant information.

In his July 2017 article in The Atlantic, “Beyond the Five Senses,” Matthew Hutson explores ways in which potential technologies might expand our sensory perception of the world. He notes that some technologies, such as cochlear implants, are already accomplishing a version of this for people who do not have full access to one of the five senses. In much of the article, though, he seems more interested in how technology might expand the ways in which we sense things. Some of these technologies are based in senses that can be seen in nature, such as echolocation, and others seem more deeply rooted in science fiction. However, all of the examples he gives consider how adding new senses to the ones we already experience might change how we perceive the world around us.

• name the author
• name the text being summarized
• state just the relevant context, if there is any (maybe the author has a specific credential that makes their work on this topic carry more weight than it would otherwise, or maybe the study they generated is now being used as a benchmark for additional research)
• introduce the author’s full name (first and last names) the first time you summarize part of their text. If you summarize pieces of the same text more than once in a work you are writing, each time you use their text after that initial introduction of the source, you will only use the author’s last name as you introduce that next summary component.

Presenting the “Meat” (or Body) of a Summary

Concluding a Summary

• Now that we’ve gotten a little more information about the main ideas of this piece, are there any connections or loose ends to tie up that will help your reader fully understand the points being made in this text? This is the place to put those.
• This is also a good place to state (or restate) the things that are most important for your readers to remember after reading your summary.
• Depending on your assignment, rather than providing a formal concluding paragraph where you restate the main points and make connections between them, you may want to simply paraphrase the author's concluding section or final main idea. Check your assignment sheet to see what kind of conclusion your instructor is asking for.

• discuss the summary you’ve just presented. How does it support, illustrate, or give new information about the point you are making in your writing? Connect it to your own main point for that paragraph so readers understand clearly why it deserves the space it takes up in your work. (Note that this is still not giving your opinion on the material you’ve summarized, just making connections between it and your own main points.)

How do you synthesize?

Below are some steps you can use to help you synthesize research:

1. Determine the goal(s) for your discussion such as reviewing a topic or supporting an argument
2. Organize the discussion among the authors of your found researched materials
3. Lead the discussion among the authors of your sources
4. Provide comments and build logical guidance for your audience
5. Summarize the most vivid of the authors’ examples and explanations
6. Finally, draw your unique conclusion on the topic: in fact, the answer to your research question

What synthesis is NOT

Synthesizing does not mean critiquing opinions: “Rick tried to defend affirmative action, but everyone knows it’s really reverse racism.”

Synthesizing does not simply comparative  texts (unless assigned as such by your instructor). You are neither evaluating nor comparing the effectiveness of the authors’ presentations.

What synthesis IS

Notice that this synthesis does not crouch behind limited and thoughtless positions: “You can’t change the Second Amendment!” “Ban all guns!” This synthesis instead tries to depict hard reality: guns are an integral part of American culture, and so is gun violence, and limiting the latter can not be done without impacting the former. This synthesis reserves judgment and aims for understanding.

Synthesis that adds to the conversation in other ways:

• While most of the experts on topic X see overfishing as the primary cause of species depletion, only Source D acknowledges that there may be other, environmental causes.
• When I began writing about topic X, I expected to learn reason Y. To my surprise, none of the sources address this reason, which leads me to believe that . . .
• Because Source A is the expert in the field of topic X, most others writing about X accede to A’s authority, but a closer examination of A reveals an important omission about X.

Other Examples of Sentence Structures that Demonstrate Synthesis

• Source A asserts that… Source B agrees when he or she states…
• According to both A & B…
• The combined conclusions of sources B & C seem to indicate that…
• The evidence shows that…
• Source B is correct that…
• Source C makes a convincing case when she argues…
• I agree with Source A’s conclusion that…

• Source A asserts that…Yet Source B offers a different perspective by…
• Source C & B would likely disagree regarding…
• My view, however, contrary to what Source A has argued, is…
• I argue that X & Y are the best solution, though Source B offers a different option.
• In contrast, I would like to offer some objections to the opinions expressed by source C…
• While source A makes an intriguing argument, I would disagree…

Organize the discussion among the authors of your sources as was explained in Section 5.2 under "How do You Synthesize?"

• Example: Numerous authors wonder if this is a natural progression over time because of the laws that have changed or a shift in ideals that redefine what free speech is supposed to be…  Author N believes that [free speech] is not controlled enough in the interest of the people, while Authors B and D believe that, in an ideal world, opinions would be formed and spoken without repercussion and merely be a part of language…

 At the end of the discussion, draw your neutral conclusionon the topic:

• Example: The question if speech has become limited, affecting the right to freedom of speech, lies in the hands of the people and the justice system itself.

 What is an Argumentative Synthesis?

First, you start the debate with the assertion that sets the goal for the debate, its controversy:

• Example: Societal changes are a large part in the debate of free speech and its limitations. The debate is about whether offensive speech should be punished when it is said with the intent to psychologically harm a group or person, or if immoral or scandalous speech should be off-limits.

• Professor of Law E disagrees…
• His thought is echoed by Professor R from the University of …
• Authors F and S also discuss and assess…
• Following in their steps, Authors D and T express…
• Unfortunately, in opposition to their respect, Author X asserts that…
• This brings us back to the view point of Authors F and S, who argue that…

•  Thus, hateful and immoral speech – which typically associates itself with low-value because of harmful words – will continue to find its limitations in the world even if it is not through government operations… 

When you synthesize, you are a part of the discussion and a leader of the discussion that you have initiated. You are introducing the voices and ideas of others, so you should be flexible and fair to all participating authors. You should avoid personal attack, as well as other logical fallacies in your comments on the information borrowed from your source materials. Read more in 6.5 Logical Fallacies

• Literature reviews are most often arranged by topic or theme, much like a traditional explanatory synthesis paper.
• If one is looking at a topic that has a long history of research and scholarship, one may conduct a chronological literature review, one that looks at how the research topic has been studied and discussed in various time periods (i.e., what was published ten years ago, five years ago, and within the last year, for example).
• Finally, in some instances, one might seek to craft a literature review that is organized by discipline or field. This type of literature review could offer information about how different academic fields have examined a particular topic (i.e., what is the current research being done by biologists on this topic? What is the current research being done by psychologists on this topic? What is the current research being done by [insert academic discipline] on this topic?).

The OWL of Purdue section "A Review of Rhetoric: From 'Persuasion' to 'Identification" clearly describes some of the intricacies of rhetoric in the following passage:

[…] Aristotle defined rhetoric as “an ability, in each particular case, to see the available means of persuasion” (Aristotle Rhetoric I.1.2, Kennedy 37). Since then, Aristotle’s definition of rhetoric has been reduced in many situations to mean simply “persuasion.” At its best, this simplification of rhetoric has led to a long tradition of people associating rhetoric with politicians, lawyers, or other occupations noted for persuasive speaking. At its worst, the simplification of rhetoric has led people to assume that rhetoric is merely something that manipulative people use to get what they want (usually regardless of moral or ethical concerns).

However, over the last century or so, the academic definition and use of “rhetoric” has evolved to include any situation in which people consciously communicate with each other. In brief, individual people tend to perceive and understand just about everything differently from one another (this difference varies to a lesser or greater degree depending on the situation, of course). This expanded perception has led a number of more contemporary rhetorical philosophers to suggest that rhetoric deals with more than just persuasion. Instead of just persuasion, rhetoric is the set of methods people use to identify with each other—to encourage each other to understand things from one another’s perspectives (see Burke 25). From interpersonal relationships to international peace treaties, the capacity to understand or modify another’s perspective is one of the most vital abilities that humans have. Hence, understanding rhetoric in terms of “identification” helps us better communicate and evaluate all such situations.

Why Do I Need to Think Rhetorically?

To locate a text's historical context, you must determine where in history the text is situated—was it written in the past five years? Ten? One hundred? You should think about how that might affect the information being delivered. Once you determine the background of the text, you should determine the rhetorical situation (i.e. who, what, when, where, why). The following questions may help:

• What is the topic of the text?
• Who is the author? What are the author's credentials, what sort of experiences has he or she had? How do his or her credentials, or lack of, connect (or not) with the topic of the text?
• Who is the target audience? Who did the author have in mind when he or she created the text?
• Who is the unintended audience? Are they related in anyway to the target audience?
• What was the occasion, historical context, or setting? What was happening during the time period when the text was produced? Where was the text distributed or published?
• How does the topic relate to the author, audience, and occasion?
• What is the author’s purpose? Why did he or she create the text?
• In what medium was the text originally produced?

Further, the occasion for writing might be very different, too. Articles or scholarly works that are at least five years old or older, may include out of date references and may not represent relevant or accurate information (e.g. think of the change regarding gay marriage in the past few years). Older works require that you investigate significant historical moments or changes that have occurred since the writing of text.

Targeted audience, occasion, and the date, site, and medium of publication will all affect the way you, the reader, read a text. Therefore, it is your duty as a thoughtful reader to research these aspects in order to fully understand and conceptualize the text's rhetorical situation. Furthermore, even though you might not be a member of the targeted audience or perhaps might not have even been alive during the production of a text, that does not mean that you cannot recognize rhetorical moves within it. We will examine the aspects of the rhetorical situation in the following section.

We will use the example of President Trump's inaugural address (the text) to sift through these questions about the rhetorical situation (context).

Author

• What kind of experience or authority does the author have in the subject about which he or she is speaking?
• What values does the author have, either in general or with regard to this particular subject?
• How invested is the author in the topic of the text? In other words, what affects the author's perspective on the topic?
• Example of author analysis for the rhetorical situation: (President Trump's Inaugural Address) President Trump was a first-term president and someone who had not previously held political office. He did not yet have experience with running the country. He is, however, a wealthy businessman and had a great deal of experience in the business world. His political affiliation is with the Republican party – the conservative political party in America. 

Audience

• Who is the author addressing?
  • Sometimes this is the hardest question of all. We can get this information  of "who is the author addressing" by looking at where an article is published. Be sure to pay attention to the newspaper, magazine, website, or journal title where the text is published. Often, you can research that publication to get a good sense of who reads that publication.
• What is the audience's demographic information (age, gender, etc.)?
• What is/are the background, values, interests of the intended audience?
• How open is this intended audience to the author?
• What assumptions might the audience make about the author?
• In what context is the audience receiving the text?
• Example of audience analysis for the rhetorical situation: (President Trump's Inaugural Address) Inaugural addresses are delivered to "the American people"; one can assume that all Americans are the intended audience. However, Americans were divided at the moment of President Trump's election, with some voters very happy that he was elected and others upset by it. Those opinions tended to split along party lines: Republicans tended to support Trump, whereas Democrats were critical of him. Republicans may be making the assumption that President Trump would be a great leader; Democrats were likely making the assumption that he would be a bad leader. As a candidate, President Trump (like all political candidates) spent most of his time in speeches trying to rally his base of supporters (his audience – Republican voters). In the inaugural address, he knows that his intended audience, his Republican base, is watching and listening with support. But there may be others who are watching his speech who are not a part of the intended audience, and as president, he likely wishes to engage and to reach out to even the Democrats who rejected him.

Setting

• Was there a debate about the topic that the author of the text addresses? If so, what are (or were) the various perspectives within that debate?
• Did something specific occur that motivated the author to speak out?
• Example of setting analysis for the rhetorical situation: (President Trump's Inaugural Address): The occasion of President Trump giving this speech is his election to the presidency. All presidents are expected to give a speech at their inauguration, therefore, the newly elected President Trump was required to give one.

Purpose

• What is the author hoping to achieve with this text?
• Why did the author decide to join the "conversation" about the topic?
• What does the author want from their audience? What does the author want the audience to do once the text is communicated?
• Example of purpose analysis for the rhetorical situation: (President Trump's Inaugural Address): President Trump's purpose in the inaugural address was to set the tone for his presidency, to share his vision with Americans, and to attempt to unite the country and prepare it for moving forward with his agenda. 

Text

• What is gained by having a text composed in a particular format/medium?
• What limitations does that format/medium have?
• What opportunities for expression does that format/medium have (that perhaps other formats do not have?)
• Example of text analysis for the rhetorical situation: (President Trump's Inaugural Address) Inaugural addresses are expected for each president. They are delivered in Washington DC – always in the same spot. The tone is formal. Inaugural addresses generally lay out a vision for the incoming president's term. 

Unlike summary, a rhetorical analysis does not only require a restatement of ideas; instead, you must recognize rhetorical moves that an author is making in an attempt to persuade his or her audience to do or to think something. In the 21st century's abundance of information, it can sometimes be difficult to discern what is a rhetorical strategy and what is simple manipulation; however, an understanding of rhetoric and rhetorical moves will help you become more savvy with the information surrounding you on a day-to-day basis. In other words, rhetorical moves can be a form of manipulation, but if one can recognize those moves, then one can be a more critical consumer of information rather than blindly accepting whatever one reads, sees, hears, etc.

The goal of a rhetorical analysis is to explain what is happening in the text, why the author might have chosen to use a particular move or set of rhetorical moves, and how those choices might affect the audience. The text you analyze might be explanatory, although there will be aspects of argument because you must negotiate with what the author is trying to do and what you think the author is doing. Edward P.J. Corbett observes, rhetorical analysis "is more interested in a literary work for what it does than for what it is" (qtd. in Nordqvist).

One of the elements of doing a rhetorical analysis is looking at a text's rhetorical situation.

The rhetorical situation is the context out of a which a text is created.The questions that you can use to examine a text's rhetorical situation are in  Chapter 6.2.

Another element of rhetorical analysis is simply reading and summarizing the text.

A third element of rhetorical analysis requires you to connect the rhetorical situation to the text.

• Does the author successfully support the thesis or claim?  Is the point held consistently throughout the text, or does it wander at any point?
• Is the evidence the author used effective for the intended audience? How might the intended audience respond to the types of evidence that the author used to support the thesis/claim?
• What rhetorical moves do you see the author making to help achieve his or her purpose? Are there word choices or content choices that seem to you to be clearly related to the author's agenda for the text or that might appeal to the intended audience?
• Describe the tone in the piece. Is it friendly? Authoritative? Does it lecture? Is it biting or sarcastic? Does the author use simple language, or is it full of jargon? Does the language feel positive or negative? Point to aspects of the text that create the tone; spend some time examining these and considering how and why they work. (Learn more about tone in Section 4.5 “Tone, Voice, and Point of View.”)
• Is the author objective, or does he or she try to convince you to have a certain opinion? Why does the author try to persuade you to adopt this viewpoint? If the author is biased, does this interfere with the way you read and understand the text?
• Do you feel like the author knows who you are? Does the text seem to be aimed at readers like you or at a different audience? What assumptions does the author make about their audience? Would most people find these reasonable, acceptable, or accurate?
• Does the text’s flow make sense? Is the line of reasoning logical? Are there any gaps? Are there any spots where you feel the reasoning is flawed in some way?
• Does the author try to appeal to your emotions? Does the author use any controversial words in the headline or the article? Do these affect your reading or your interest?
• Do you believe the author? Do you accept their thoughts and ideas? Why or why not?

Once you have done this basic, rhetorical, critical reading of your text, you are ready to think about how the rhetorical situation (Section 6.2) - the context out of which the text arises -  influences certain rhetorical appeals (Section 6.4) that appear in it.

We can look first at the classical rhetorical appeals, which are the three ways to classify authors' intellectual, moral, and emotional approaches to getting the audience to have the reaction that the author hopes for.

Rhetorical Appeals

 When writers misuse Logos, Pathos, or Ethos, arguments can be weakened

In fact, any of the appeals could be misused or overused. When that happens, arguments can be weakened.

To see what a misuse of logical appeals might consist of, see the next chapter,  Logical Fallacies.

To see how authors can overuse emotional appeals and turn-off their target audience, visit the following link from WritingCommons.org: Fallacious Pathos. 

To see how ethos can be misused or used in a manner that may be misleading, visit the following link to WritingCommons.org: Fallacious Ethos

Fallacy means false. Think of the concept of a logical fallacy as something that makes an argument problematic, open to attack, or weak. In academic discourse, logical fallacies are seen as failures - as things you will want to avoid.

Thinking about fallacies can be confusing because you see them all the time: in advertising, in conversation, in political discourse. Fallacies are everywhere. But as students of rhetoric, part of your job is to spend time identifying these fallacies in both your own writing and in others' as a way to avoid them.

Logical Fallacies - A Short List

1. Generalization  - A conclusion or judgment made from insufficient evidence.  When one piece of evidence or information is used to make a broad conclusion or statement.
2. Cherry picking - Picking and choosing only some of the available evidence in order to present only points most favorable to your point of view. If someone knowingly chooses certain (favorable) pieces of information and conveniently ignores less favorable information, then the argument is not supported by all of the available research.
3. Straw Man - An oversimplification of an opposing perspective so that it becomes easy to attack. This is unfair and illogical because when one oversimplifies or inaccurately represents an argument and refutes that oversimplified version, one is not actually addressing the argument.
4. Red Herring - Changing topics to avoid the point being discussed. This is an argument tactic in which one attempts to change the conversation, often by bringing up information that is not relevant to the claim or point being debated, in order to try to control the conversation. This can be a way to avoid  having to address or answer the question at hand, and it harms the quality of an argument.
5. Ad Hominem - It is a personal attack rather than a way of engaging with someone’s ideas. For example: “You are an idiot! That’s why you’re wrong!”  This type of logical fallacy occurs when an arguer attacks or insults the person making opposing arguments instead of attacking the ideas, the logic, or the evidence within the opposing argument itself. It is a personal attack rather than a way of engaging with someone's ideas.
6. Ad Populum - A misused reference to popularly accepted values. For instance:  “This is about freedom and righteousness, and if you believe in those things, then you should believe my argument.”  This is an example of misused ethos - when the author is referencing the values that the audience cares about so that they think only about the values and not about the content of the argument (or, likely, the fact that there is little intellectual substance in what is being said).
7. Either/or - – This is an argument that attempts to create a situation of absolutes with no options in between.  For example: “Either we intervene or we are basically no better than the Nazis.”    This thinking is fallacious because it assumes that there are only two options, with nothing in between.
8. Slippery Slope - This is a fallacy that assumes that one thing is going to have a series of consequences or effects–often leading to a worst-case scenario. For example: “If we let this happen, then that will happen and then the worst possible thing will happen.”  It is false reasoning because 1) it's impossible to predict the future, 2) it is illogical to suggest that one action will always necessarily lead to the worst possible outcome, and 3) it assumes a very specific chain of future events. This "if we let this happen there will be some horrible end" is misuse of cause/effect reasoning, often with some pathos (fear) sprinkled in.

As you draft ideas for your own arguments, test each of your reasons against these definitions: have you used any of these fallacies to build your reasoning? If so, keep revising your line of reasoning!

But as readers and writers, we should be aware that rhetoric is often more complicated than these broad categories.  Writers often employ techniques that blur the lines within this classification system.  One common mistake that students make is to simply sift through a text, looking for examples of Logos, Pathos and Ethos and then separate them into compartments, sort of like that young children’s game, where you put the round block in the round hole, the square block in the square hole, etc.  But what if you get a block that doesn’t fit any of the holes?

I know.  The word “theory” can be intimidating.  But what Speech Act Theory basically says is that every time a person uses language, they are not simply communicating information, but also committing an act, and those acts have a specific purpose for the person speaking and an intended effect on the audience to whom they are communicating.

This applies both to formal writing and to informal, everyday speech.  When someone writes an argumentative essay, they are committing the speech act of trying to share their viewpoint and get others to believe it.  But it is equally true that, when we casually talk with people in our private lives, we are engaging in speech acts.  When we tell a story about something that happened to us, we want our friends to listen and have some sort of desired reaction to it, such as finding it entertaining.  When we tell a joke, we want people to laugh.  Even the basic act of saying “hello” to someone is a speech act, as it opens the possibility for further conversation.  In fact, saying “hello” is maybe one of the most important everyday rhetorical moves, as it lays the basic foundation for human connection.  But we can’t really compartmentalize it as Logos, Pathos or Ethos.  It’s one of those blocks that doesn’t fit any of the holes, but we still need it to play the game.

Very often, an author’s most effective rhetorical moves are of this unclassifiable nature.  And as readers, we should strive to move beyond thinking in terms of separating everything into the categories of Logos, Pathos of Ethos, and instead ask ourselves what the writer is trying to DO in every sentence, paragraph and their text as a whole.

1. Let’s consider Frederick Douglass’s essay “Learning to Read and Write.”
2. In the first few paragraphs, Douglass describes the negative effect that slavery had on his “mistress.” What speech act or purpose is he trying to accomplish with this opening?  How is he trying to affect his audience with this depiction of slavery as an evil that hurts white people as well as the enslaved? How does this blur the line between our rhetorical categories?
3. When Douglass describes his interaction with the dock workers later in the essay and relates their sympathetic attitude towards him and his fate of lifelong slavery, what effect is he trying to have on his audience? How does this modeling technique relate to or defy basic rhetorical categories?

How is reflective writing in the academic setting different from journaling or writing in a diary?

If you write in a diary or a journal, recording your thoughts and feelings about what has happened in your life, you are certainly engaging in the act of reflection. Many of us have some experience with this type of writing. In our diaries, journals, or other informal spaces for speaking - or writing- our mind,  write to ourselves, for ourselves, in a space that will largely remain private.

Your reflection essay for college courses will contain some of those same features:

• The subject of the reflective essay is you and your experiences
• You can generally use first person in a reflective essay

What can be gained from metacognitive activities that ask you to reflect on your learning and your performance as a writer?

One of the major goals in any First-Year Writing class is to encourage students’ growth as writers. No one is expected to be a perfect writer at the end of the semester. Your instructor’s hope, however, is that after 16 weeks of reading, writing, and revising several major essays, you are more confident, capable, and aware of yourself as a writer than you were at the beginning of the semester. Reflecting on the process that you go through as you write - even if your writing is not perfect - can help you to identify the behaviors, strategies, and resources that have helped you to be successful or that could support your future success. In short, reflecting on how you write (or how you have written during a particular semester) can be quite powerful in helping you to identify areas where you have grown and areas where you still have room for more growth.

How can I write a reflective essay?

• What, exactly, the scope of the reflection is. Are you reflecting on one lesson, one assignment, or the whole semester?
• Do you have detailed guidelines, resources, or reference documents for your reflections that must be met?
• Is there a particular structure for the reflection?
• Should the reflection include any outside resources?

Another wonderful resource for writing a reflective essay comes from Writing Commons, in the article “Writing an Academic Reflection Essay”. This article offers great information about the following:

• What it means to be “academic” or “critical” and at the same time personal and reflective
• How you can achieve focus in a reflective essay
• What “evidence” is in a reflective essay

How can I do critical analysis?

Detailing the Basics

Look for clusters, patterns, and coordination

• A cluster includes technologies, people, texts, or ideas that exist near one another in a situation.
• Patterns include sequences of events that repeat.
  • o Clusters and patterns can help writers see the relationships between different elements and can help the writer see and understand a situation differently.
• Coordination includes how humans use texts, technologies, and ideas in different tasks.
  • o Coordination can help the writer see how separate acts of reading, writing, and communication work together to complete larger tasks.

A deeper look at coordination

Looking through the lens of intersectionality

What could be added?

Works Cited

Content is the literal information being communicated by a media object.  This might mean describing the types of sounds or lyrics in a song, the setting and characters in a film or television show, or images from a piece of a visual art.  Think of describing the content as summarizing the information in an object as opposed to interpreting the information.  Use straightforward statements to avoid interpretation. For example, you might describe an exhibit in a modern art museum as such: This picture focuses on a bridge and a river.  There are two people standing on the bridge.  Using simpler statements will help keep the content and form of the object separate.

2. Explain the form of the media object.

 Formal qualities of a media object are the delivery system for an object’s content.  To discuss the form of an object, you will need to consider the way the object has been organized and how to describe that organization.  Think of this as describing the ‘shape’ of the new media object.  To do this, use descriptive statements that explain how an object appears.  Let’s return to the picture from before.  The painting is very large and takes up the entire wall.  It is made of many bright, unnatural colors, and appears to be made with a computer instead of a paintbrush.  Your description should aim to explain how the object is being presented to the audience.

3. Synthesize content and form.

 Once you have generated some ideas about the information in the media object (Content) and how that information is presented (Form), you can synthesize the two by combining your observations into a claim about the object.  A good starting point is to consider what the goals of the creator may have been: Why did the author present this content in this form?  Answering your own questions will help guide you towards a more complete understanding of the object.  From here, you can begin to draft a thesis statement about the purpose and meaning of the media object you are analyzing.

• textual - this mode emphasizes text such as an essay. 
• visual - this mode emphasizes what an audience can see such as videos, images, colors, etc. 
• aural - this mode emphasizes what an audience can hear such as silence or music.
• gestural - this mode emphasizes movement such as gestures made during a speech.
• spatial - this mode emphasizes space such as the way an infographic might be composed to make it easier to read/understand quickly. 

Multimodal composing practice has been integrated in many First-Year Writing classrooms across the US since the 1990s. Examples of digital multimodal texts (sometimes described as "new media") include websites, infographics, podcasts, videos while non-digital multimodal texts might take the form of posters, collages, zines, comic books, or graphs. While this is not an exhaustive list, it does demonstrate how common multimodal texts are both inside and outside of the classroom.

Why Compose Multimodal Texts?

Perhaps the most significant reason for learning how to compose multimodally is that it provides “real-life” skills that can help prepare students for careers. The United States continues to experience a “digital age” where employees are expected to have an understanding of how to use technology and communicate in various ways for various purposes. Takayoshi and Selfe argue that “[w]hatever profession students hope to enter in the 21st century . . . they can expect to read and be asked to help compose multimodal texts of various kinds . . .” (3). Additionally, professionals are also using the benefits of digital tools and multimodal composing to promote themselves, their interests, research, or all three. Learning how to create a multimodal text will prepare you for the workforce by allowing you to embrace the skills you already have and learn how to target specific audiences for specific reasons using various modes of communication. (74)

I suggest beginning by answering the following questions below to help you determine your rhetorical situation:

Who are you targeting?

What is your purpose and/or message?

What genre will help you achieve your goal and reach your audience?

Where should your text be shared?

• Digital Design Studio Equipment. You can rent equipment such as digital cameras and camcorders and other photography and video equipment, microphones, maker equipment, VR headsets, and more.

The Digital Design Studio also offers the following guides to help you start, revise, and complete your multimodal projects:

• A Multimodal Project Guide. This is a research guide that provides multiple resources to help you get started with your project.
• A guide to understanding copyright. This guide helps you differentiate between copyright, public domain, and creative commons licenses to ensure that you are using appropriate resources in your multimodal text.
• A guide to Finding Materials for your project. This guide provides links to places where you can find Creative Commons media such as images, text, music, and video.
• A guide to understanding your digital identity and privacy. This guides offers useful information on managing and protecting your digital identity and privacy.

Videos, articles, and books

The book Writer/Designer: A Guide to Making Multimodal Projects by Cheryl E. Ball, Jennifer Sheppard, and Kristin L. Arola provides students with a step-by-step approach to creating a multimodal project beginning with the brainstorming phase and concluding with considerations about archiving your digital work. Check it out at the library.

For more information about multimodality, check out the six minute video created by Sean Tingle, a college writing instructor, by clicking the link below:

In this essay from Writing Spaces volume 3, Melanie Gagich introduces multimodality and provides five steps to help students begin the composing processes. Additionally, the essay includes specific examples of the five modes of communication (aural, textual, visual, gestural, and spatial) while also arguing for the importance of multimodal composing in writing classrooms. She also includes a brief review of how to find open (or free) resources and media and definitions of Creative Commons licenses.

Some of the key tools of argument are the strategies that students are asked to consider when doing a Rhetorical Analysis. Chapter 6 of this textbook covers Rhetorical Analysis extensively, and it is worth reviewing the basic concepts of context/text, and logos, pathos, and ethos before beginning an argument of your own. As you plan and draft your own argument, you must carefully use the following elements of rhetoric to your own advantage as you craft your own argument:

Rhetorical Appeals

The use of logic, data/evidence, and sufficient support to establish the practicality and rationality of your ideas. To have a logically sound argument, you should include:

• A debatable and supportable claim
• Logical reasoning to support your claim
• Sound evidence and examples to justify the reasoning
• Reasonable projections
• Concessions & rebuttals
• You should avoid logical fallacies

The ethical and well-balanced use of all of the strategies above will help you to present yourself as trustworthy and intelligent in your consideration of the topic and in the development of your argument. Another aspect of your credibility as a writer of argument, particularly in the college setting, is your attention to the needs of the audience with regard to presentation and style. In college, this means: have you used MLA if that is what the reading audience requests? Have you cited sources in the manner that your reading audience would expect?

Pathos

The use of examples and language that evoke an appropriate emotional response in your reader—that gets them to care about your topic—can be helpful in argument. For academic essays, pathos may be useful in introductory sections, concluding sections, or as ways to link various parts of the paper together. Still, college writing often puts more emphasis on logos and ethos.

Chapter 6.4 provides a detailed explanation of each of these rhetorical appeals. As you plan and draft your argument, look over these explanations to help you brainstorm ways to rhetorically engage your reader in a way that includes elements of logos, pathos, and ethos.

Structure

Style/ Eloquence

However, some writing assignments allow you to choose your audience, and in that case, the style in which you write may not be the formal, precise Standard American English that the academy prefers. For some writing assignments, you may even be asked to use, where appropriate, poetic or figurative language or language that evokes the senses.

It is important to understand what kind of style of writing your audience expects, as delivering your argument in that style could make it more persuasive.

Claim: What do you want the reader to believe?

• The city of Cleveland has displayed a commitment to attracting new residents by making improvements to its walkability, city centers, and green spaces.

An open thesis statement does not include sub-claims and might be more appropriate when your argument is less easy to prove with two or three easily-defined sub-claims.  The choice between an open or a closed thesis statement often depends upon the complexity of your argument. When in doubt about how to structure your thesis statement, you should seek the advice of your instructor.

Context: What background information about the topic does your audience need?

Evidence or Grounds: What makes your reasoning valid? 

Section 4.4 provides a thorough overview of what evidence is and how evidence fits into body paragraphs. As you plan or draft your argument, use this chapter as a resource to help you organize ideas.

Warrants: Why should a reader accept your claim?

An important way to ensure you are properly supplying warrants within your argument is to use “linking sentences” or a “link” that connects the particular claim directly back to the thesis.  Ensuring that there are linking sentences in each paragraph will help to create consistency within your essay.  Remember, the thesis statement is the driving force of organization in your essay, so each paragraph needs to have a specific purpose in proving or explaining your thesis; linking sentences complete this task. These linking sentences will often appear after your textual evidence in a paragraph. See Section 4.5 for help linking supporting evidence to your thesis.

Counterargument: But what about other perspectives?

• summarizing opposing views
• explaining how and where you actually agree with some opposing views
• acknowledging weaknesses or holes in your own argument

Response to Counterargument: I see that, but...

• concede to a specific point or idea from the counterargument by  explaining why that point or idea has validity. However, you must then be sure to return to your own claim, and explain why even that concession does not lead you to completely accept or support the counterargument
• reject the counterargument if you find it to be incorrect, fallacious, or otherwise invalid
• explain why the counterargument perspective does not invalidate your own claim

A note about where to put the counterargument:

• Address the counterargument(s) fully. Explain what the counter perspectives are. Describe them thoroughly. Cite authors who have these counter perspectives. Quote them and summarize their thinking.
• Then, respond to these counterarguments. Make it clear to the reader of your argument why you concede to certain points of the counterargument or why you reject them. Make it clear that you do not accept the counterargument, even though you understand it. Be sure to use transition phrases that make this clear to your reader.

Evidence is what a writer uses to support or defend his or her argument, and only valid and credible evidence is enough to make an argument strong.

For a review of what evidence means in terms of developing body paragraphs within an essay, you can refer back to Section 4.3.

As you develop your research-supported essay, consider not only what types of evidence might support your ideas but also what types of evidence will be considered valid or credible according to the academic discipline or academic audience for which you are writing.

Evidence in the Humanities: Literature, Art, Film, Music, Philosophy

Below, however, is a brief overview of what counterarguments are and how you might respond to them in your arguments.

Types of counterarguments

• Could someone disagree with your claim? If so, why? Explain this opposing perspective in your own argument, and then respond to it.
• Could someone draw a different conclusion from any of the facts or examples you present? If so, what is that different conclusion? Explain this different conclusion and then respond to it.
• Could a reader question any of your assumptions or claims? If so, which ones would they question? Explain and then respond.
• Could a reader offer a different explanation of an issue? If so, what might their explanation be? Describe this different explanation, and then respond to it.
• Is there any evidence out there that could weaken your position? If so, what is it? Cite and discuss this evidence and then respond to it.

Responding to counterarguments

• If you agree with some of the counterargument perspectives, you can concede some of their points. ("I do agree that ....", "Some of the points made by ____ are valid.....") You could then challenge the importance/usefulness of those points.
  • "However, this information does not apply to our topic because..."
• If the counterargument perspective is one that contains different evidence than you have in your own argument, you can explain why a reader should not accept the evidence that the counterarguer presents
  • For a detailed account of the various ways that evidence can fail in an argument, see Section 8.5, how evidence fails
• If the counterargument perspective is one that contains a different interpretation of evidence than you have in your own argument, you can explain why a reader should not accept the interpretation of the evidence that that your opponent (counterarguer) presents
• If the counterargument is an acknowledgement of evidence that threatens to weaken your argument, you must explain why and how that evidence does not, in fact invalidate your claim.

• Researchers have challenged these claims with…
• Critics argue that this view…
• Some readers may point to…
• A perspective that challenges the idea that . . .

• Indeed, some of those points are valid. However, . . .
• While I agree that . . . , it is more important to consider . . .
• These are all compelling points. Still, other information suggests that . .
• While I understand  . . . , I cannot accept the evidence because . . .

• The evidence that you have provided is inaccurate: You've misread information or misquoted; you are not interpreting the quoted material in an accurate manner
• The evidence that you have provided is insufficient: You are using just a small piece of evidence to support your reasoning. You need more. You probably have a "generalization" fallacy.
• The evidence that you have provided is unrelated to the reason: Your evidence does not clearly or directly relate to the point that you are trying to make.
• The evidence that you have provided is incomplete or too narrowly chosen: You have "cherry picked" certain examples or pieces of information to the exclusion of others, so while you do have evidence to support your point, you are also neglecting a lot of other information
• The evidence that you have provided is old: The information that you are citing is not relevant anymore. It is outdated!
• The evidence that you have provided does not come from an authoritative source: The source of your evidence is not credible; the person being cited is not an authority on the topic

The best research topics are meaningful to you

• Choose a topic that you want to understand better.
• Choose a topic that you want to read about and devote time to
• Choose a topic that is perhaps a bit out of your comfort zone
• Choose a topic that allows you to understand others' opinions and how those opinions are shaped.
• Choose something that is relevant to you, personally or professionally.
• Do not choose a topic because you think it will be "easy" - those can end up being even quite challenging

Brainstorming Ideas for a Research Topic

1. What news stories do you often see and want to know more about?
2. What would you love to become an expert on?
3. What are you passionate about?
4. What are you scared of?
5. What problem in the world needs to be solved?
6. What are the key controversies or current debates in the field of work that you want to go into?
7. What is the biggest issue facing [specific group of people: by age, by race, by gender, by ethnicity, by nationality, by geography, by economic standing? choose a group]
8. What area/landmark/piece of history in your home community are you interested in?
9. What global problem do you want to better understand?
10. What local problem do you want to better understand?
11. Is there some element of the career that you would like to have one day that you want to better understand?
12. Consider researching the significance of a song, or an artist, or a musician, or a novel/film/short story/comic, or an art form on some aspect of the broader culture.

From Topic to Research Question

 Research Question Guidelines

• Your research question is based on a topic that genuinely interests you
• Your question is not a simple "yes/no" question
• Your research question does not have an easy, obvious answer (a quick google check of your research question should reveal whether there is an easy, obvious answer. If so, this means that you need to revise and refine your question)
• The research question asks "how?" or "in what ways," or "what"?
• The research question is focused, specific, narrow (enough)
• The research question is researchable. It is not asking about the future or about areas of faith, where we cannot find hard evidence about what is

• What data do you need?
• What can different kinds of sources - popular or academic, primary/secondary/tertiary - offer you?
• Whose perspectives could help you to answer your research question?
• What kinds of professionals/scholars will be able to give you the information you seek?
• What kinds of keywords should you be using to get the information that you want?

Where should I look?

• Scientists/researchers who have conducted their own research studies on your topic
• Scholars/thinkers/writers who have also looked at your topic and offered their own analyses of it
• Journalists who are reporting on what they have observed
• Journalists/newspaper or magazine authors who are providing their educated opinions on your topic
• Critics, commentators or others who offer opinions on your topic
• Tertiary sources/fact books that offer statistics or data (usually without analysis)
• Personal stories of individuals who have lived through an event
• Bloggers/tweeters/other social media posters

Wikipedia, the place that we have all been told to avoid, can be a great place to get ideas for a research strategy

• Do you fully understand the history of your topic?
• Do you understand the current situation/most recent information on your topic?
• Do you know about key events that have shaped the controversy surrounding your topic?

Wikipedia as a resource, not a source

• Avoid typing your whole research question into the search field. Use only keywords, in various combinations
• Use several keywords at once, and be willing to change each word for a synonym if you hit a dead end with one set of words
• Use "AND" or "OR" to retrieve more results or to limit your results
• Use the database's own Subject Terms to help you to refine your searches within that database

What is Academic Search Complete?

• Limit your search results to only get peer reviewed (scholarly) articles
• Limit your search results to get articles that are accessible via download
• Refine your searches so that you get the information most relevant to your research project
• Refine your search to specific dates so that only articles from a certain time period are found
• Access articles that you find
• Locate article abstracts
• Find subject terms and understand how they can be useful to your research strategy

A Note about Google Scholar vs Academic Search Complete

Research Strategy: Coming Up with Keywords for Your Topic

1. What are at least two phrases related to your research topic that you can search "in quotation marks"?
2. What are your NOT words -- the words that you want to exclude from your search?
3. For which words would the asterisk be helpful?
4. What are three core keywords (using the guidelines in the video above) that you can use in a search for your topic? What are synonyms for each of those three words?

Keeping Track of Your Sources

1. Create a Google Doc or a Word file to keep track of the sources that you want to read. Copy and paste the full citation (many databases, like Academic Search Complete, create a Works Cited reference for you). Or, if you are using a source that you found via google, copy and paste the URL of the source (it will need to be cited properly by author name, article title, source, etc. if you use it in a paper).
2. Import sources that you may want to use to Zotero, a free software tool that you can download to store, cite and organize potential sources.
3. If you are searching in Academic Search Complete, Create a "Folder" in Academic Search Complete to save the articles that look interesting
4. Emailing hyperlinks of web sources to yourself often seems like the easiest idea. However, be aware that if you email URLs of articles that you find in the library's research databases, they will not open if you are not logged in to CSU's library. Instead, email the citation (with article title, author name) to yourself so that you can go back and find the article later.
5. Print. If you find an article that you are fairly sure will be useful, go ahead and print it out. You may want to have a folder dedicated to your research project where you keep print outs of all the articles you plan to use. You will end up saving yourself time if you add the Works Cited info in with all of your other sources.

Components of an Annotated Bibliography

Works Cited Reference

Summary of the source

• After the works cited reference, begin to discuss the source. Begin with a summary of the source.
• At the very beginning of your summary, mention the title of the text you are summarizing, the name of the author, and the central point or argument of the text. Describe the key sections of the text and their corresponding main points. Try to avoid focusing on details; a summary covers the essential points.
• Use signal phrases to refer to the author(s)
• Always maintain a neutral tone and use the third-person point of view and present tense (i.e. Tompkins asserts…).
• Keep the focus of the summary on the text, not on what you think of it, and try to put as most of the summary as you can in your own words. If you must use exact phrases from the source that you are summarizing, you must quote and cite them.
• Check the Annotated Bibliography assignment sheet for additional content requirements. Instructors often require more than a simple summary of each source. Do you need to go beyond summarizing each source? Do you need to evaluate the source's credibility or relevance? Do you need to offer an explanation of how you plan to integrate the source in your paper? Do you need to point out similarities or differences with other sources in the annotated bibliography? Any (or all) of those things may be required in an annotated bibliography, depending on how or if your instructor has designed this assignment as part of a larger research project. 

Formatting

Website Articles

Trade Publications

Work’s reference citation:

Stone, A. (2020, January/February). The end of discipline in the classroom. Teach, 26-29. https://issuu.com/teachmag/docs/teach_janfeb2020

Considerations for Evaluating Academic Sources

Author

Length of the Article

Date of Publication

Relevance

Basic Format

Abstract

Works Cited

Literature Review

The "Research Gap"

The Scholar(s) Add His/Her/Their New Perspective

Conclusion

As you read scholarly sources, remember

• to look for the author's research question or hypothesis
• to seek out the "research gap": why did the author have this research question or hypothesis?
• to identify the Literature Review
• to identify the the point at which the author stops discussing previous research and begins to discuss his or her own
• Most importantly: remember to always try to understand what new information this article brings to the scholarly "conversation" about this topic?

Specifically, this section provides you with information pertaining to research questions, research methods, research instruments, and research article methodology sections in the hopes that it will help you read academic research and eventually conduct and/or propose your own study.

A key fact to keep in mind: methodological choices must align with the research question(s), which informs the type of instruments used.

Research Questions

While you might sometimes be asked to write a research question in college writing, these are often questions that will lead you to arguments and evidence that already exist. In the "real world" of academia, a research question represents a researcher's attempt to create new knowledge in the field.

Research Methods

The word "research methods" broadly refers to how you plan to conduct your study. There are three types of research methods: qualitative, quantitative, and mixed. Your choice of research methods depends on your research question and the type of data you need to collect to answer that question.

Qualitative Methods

Some research questions focus on opinions, individual experiences, motivations, etc. and generate non-numerical data. These types of questions require qualitative methods to answer them.

Qualitative methods are often used if:

• You want to study a phenomena/occurrence in detail
  • Example research question: How does a freshman ENG 102 student describe their writing processes?
• You want to focus on individual interpretations/experiences
  • Example research question: What are the experiences of 18-25 year old women using Fitbits for dieting?

Example of open-ended survey questions:

Quantitative Methods

Quantitative methods are often used if:

• You want to understand the relationship among variables.
  • Example research question:What is the relationship between gender and 4.0 GPAs among freshman students?

• You want to understand difference among variables.
  • Example research question: What is the difference between attitudes in male and female students in a freshman level writing course?

Example of closed-ended survey questions:

Example of Likert-Scale survey items:

Mixed Methods

The Methodology Section in an Academic Research Article

In an empirical research article, there will be a section outlining the methodology for the study that was conducted. Empirical research refers to knowledge that is gained "by means of direct and indirect observation or experience."  Including a methodology section in an academic research paper provides the audience with important information such as the participants and the setting of the study as well as descriptions of data collection and analysis.